Training Log Archive: barb

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Marched in the Cambridge Memorial Day Parade. Pretty low key as far as training goes, but it felt tough the day after the rogaine, with blisters and a hint of hot & humid summer. As we passed the reviewing stand, they announced "Cambridge Youth Soccer, led by Barb Bryant and the Twisters," and I felt a sudden urge to go start an R&B band or something. I think most small towns in America would have more onlookers for their Memorial Day parades than does Cambridge!

2nd half of the SVO rogaine.

Thanks to Brad and Eddie and Marilee and everyone else who helped with this! It was a lot of fun!

11 hours = Finished with 30 minute to spare, and took 2 15-minute rest stops.

Event: SVO Memorial Day Weekend ROGAINE
 

SVO rogaine in PA put on by Eddie and friends. This was the 2nd event in my biweekly rogaine series. Eddie's hand-crafted stain-glass controls are the best prizes ever, so I was pretty psyched to find out that Katia and I were the only women's team entered in the 24-hour category, and therefore guaranteed first place if we could just manage to return under our own power and not lose our punch card, both of which were real concerns.

I knew we'd finished second, and a close second, when I heard Nadim say "sorry, Barb!" while looking at the results.

Rogaining in this terrain is a lot different than in Oregon, where it's so open and dry. Here there's a big element of dealing with unmapped features: trails, enormous enclosures surrounded by truly uncrossable fences, and laurel & thorn jungles. Eddie even threw in a bingo control to complement the natural challenges.

Our navigation was good. There were a few times when I felt we were being a little sloppy, but it turned out OK. I think I've reached a stage with rogaine navigation where what feels like instinct can be trusted, because I've been taking in enough data and pulling a lot of information from the map. There were a few places where we should have been more careful. We made relatively safe route choices. We missed the bingo control on our first pass, but nailed it on our second attack.

Katia lost her map in the first half of the rogaine. After that we passed mine back and forth to discuss route choice.

Went pretty low-key with the headlamps: Katia's was LED-only, and I had mine set to LED mode for the most part. I discovered in Oregon that spider eyes flicker weirdly blue-green in LED light, and I saw a bunch here in Pennsylvania as well. Also saw a tortoise, a black snake curled up on a branch I almost walked into, a turkey - and heard a bunch of whippoorwills (sp?) in the wee hours of the morning.

I was still a little weak from being sick on Wednesday. During the first half of the rogaine, I was experiencing the same GI pain that preceeded my illness of the previous week, and I was worried that it might develop the same way and leave me incapacitated out near some distant control. But by the tough part of the rogaine, I was physically settled into that long-haul rogaine feeling - and maybe the physical distress was good for a few extra endorphins.

I am especially grateful that we weren't bothered by mosquitos or other biting insects. The weather was great, hot in the late afternoon but otherwise cool, and not cold at night; no rain. We got our feet wet in the 2nd half in a couple of places: marsh, stream crossing and morning dew.



This was my partner Katia's first rogaine. She rocks!



David Onkst & Nadim Ahmed collected the most points. That's Mark Frank, Steve Aaronson and Mary Frank in the background (thanks Greg :-).



The DeWitts.

11:45 = 1st 12 hours - 15 minute rest stop

C • ref Photo w/ nadim & dave 1

Still feeling pretty weak from yesterday's illness.

Here's a random photo of the day, my daughter playing soccer for the Cambridge Twisters:



Heading for MD/PA tomorrow with Katia for the rogaine.

Event: CSU Pine Hill
 

Got hugely sick last night and only just now (4 pm) managed to make it out of bed to get some broth. Met my weight goal! :-) I expect to gain a few pounds back when I start keeping liquids down.

C • AWOL 2

to work, to G&P, back to work, home

I believe that I live in the highest concentration of people-who-have-rogained in the world. Living within 50 ft of my home are 5 people who have competed in 24-hour rogaines - or will have, after this coming weekend.

Today I talked to a ranger for the Boston Harbor Islands in order to arrange a field trip for 1st and 2nd graders to orienteer on an island. She told me about a project we could participate in, to survey the invertebrates on the island. A Harvard University researcher is doing this, and she is really into citizen-scientists, inviting the public and schoolchildren to participate. Very cool. And her name? Jessica Rykken!!! Another orienteering social network loop!

Walked home from meeting Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and Jerome Armstrong at a local bar. I got them to sign a copy of Crashing the Gate.



The Illuminite jacket (usually black) lights up pretty good in the flash. We got the jacket from our friend who used to work for Illuminite.

The Big Muddy rogaine results are out. Orlyn and I did finish 4th, though there was a men's open team that would have finished higher, except they were 8 minutes late back to the hash house.

I was curious about the women's team that beat us. Googling Danelle Ballengee, I found out she is an insane extreme adventure racer. She climbed all 55 Colorado 14ers in under 15 days. For example. She's 34. Reading an interview with her from this January, one thought I have is how lucky I have been with my rogaine partners. You hear about the tough dynamics on these AR teams - and I realize that is a much more intense and time-consuming relationship than the rogaine team - but I have been fortunate to have partners that are lovely and mellow and fun during the race. All of them. Orlyn, John, J-J, Sharon, Deb, Dave, Bill, Adam...

Danelle's partner was Rebecca Rusch, also an accomplished adventure racer, and also 34. I guess the rogaine was just a little bit of pleasant training for them!

So my training has become hugely lame. But still, at least I'm moving my body... Walked with Lisa. In the city, not the woods.

To JP, MIT, and home

Along the water in Nahant; from MIT home.

Jogged to the office and back; Isabel came along on her bike.

This morning I finished "The Places in Between" by Rory Stewart; I picked it up at Powell's Books at the Portland airport. It chronicles his walk across Afghanistan in 2002, following in the footsteps of a 16th century ruler, and coming across areas that were totally devastated only months earlier by the Taliban (including the place where they destroyed the huge buddha statues). It reminded me of a documentary Dave and I saw at a film festival in Amsterdam a few years ago, about a guy who made it across the Sahara desert, where the biggest danger was human, only to return a few years later and disappear for good. And I also thought of my father, traveling with his wife and two young kids (aged 2 and 6) into Soviet Russia in 1968 in a VW camper.

Rory Stewart lives in Perthshire, near where the Scottish 6-day will be held in 2009.

C • Reading or sleeping? 2

Commute

Short 3-mile bridge loop. Felt hard, unnatural.

I admit it. I am really tired from the weekend. Resolved: get to bed really early tonight. Now, where's my coffee?

Before leaving for Oregon, I was doing some last-minute shopping at EMS last Thursday. I was helped by an employee who, I noticed, was unusually competent and friendly (and beautiful). Then she said who she was, and I was embarrassed not to have known. I guess I rely on the pigtails (and the orienteering meet context) to recognize Viktoria B, and she doesn't wear her hair that way to work...

Some gentle biking to and from work, and with the kids.

Hiked along the Pacific Crest Trail with John.

Rogaine cool-down hike at Multnomah Falls. My legs were definitely tired. The blisters hurt a bit but were not debilitating. And I was mentally somewhat checked out.

C • how do u get pictures in your training log"? 4

Rest of rogaine.

Event: Big Muddy Rogaine III
 

I love rogaining.

This was lovely - we were slow but steady and accurate on awesome terrain.

Orlyn and I collected 2310 points, which I think puts us at 4th place overall. Unfortunately I lost the first epunch after filling it up - I stupidly put it in a fanny pack pocket that was in active use - it must have fallen out. So we didn't get the mixed vets gold medal that we earned. I think we got more points than any other veteran, supervet or mixed team, and were beaten by (1) an adventure race team who got all but 1 control, (2) Vlad and an AR partner, and (3) a team of two women ARers (yay women!).

Not counting stops, I think we were on the move for about 22.5 hours. Orlyn could have gone faster on the uphills (I was maxed out), and I could have gone faster at night - and we both could have gone faster in the morning (but that would have been painful). It was interesting that on the last leg, when I realized I'd lost the epunch, suddenly I was mad instead of in pain, and could go a lot faster.

Once we got past the first few controls and got into the map, our navigation was excellent. A major goal for me was to orienteer well at night, because in recent rogaines I've had trouble with that. We played it very safe in the dark, with careful pace-counting and compass bearings. We followed gullies where we could have been faster on spurs - but I felt safer navigationally in the gullies. In retrospect, I think we'd have been fine on the spurs, as careful as we were.

Orlyn is a great partner: steady, good-humored, easy to talk with, and agreeable. And such a nice smile:


I took a photo at control 42 because the punch and sign-in sheet were missing. I wish I'd taken a photo at each of the first 30 controls...

Doesn't that terrain look tasty?

Physically I felt incredibly good until the last 4 hours. For the first time, I had been taking glucosamine steadily the previous week - and my knees & hips did not hurt at all! This was like a miracle, because there was a lot of steep downhill, and in previous rogaines I've been nearly incapacitated by my knees by the end. My legs also felt fine. My feet hurt a lot by the end, but even at 14 hours I was noting with surprise that my feet not only were not bothering me - they felt great! Cozy and clean and loving each step. Wow.

It was hilly. It's interesting to do, in a single leg, as much climb as all of a typical blue course.

More photos of the weekend are here.

I can't wait for the next rogaine. Less than two weeks.

Hiked almost to the top of Dog Mountain in the time I'd allotted. Later I discovered that Eric & Mary Smith were on the same hike at the same time! They started earlier and came down a different route.

It was beautiful:

C • Dog Mountain 5

Started off walking with Geoff. Then took off around the river.

Hm, after reading the thread on the US Champs in Buena Vista, I am now thinking a burro would make a great rogaine partner. They look fast and they can carry all the food.



I looked up the rules, and rule 1 is "A team shall consist of two, three, four or five members." It doesn't say that the members have to be human.

C • burros 3

with Geoff who is actually slower than me; I would not have thought it possible. 5 miles or so bridge circuit.

7 miles around the river. Geoff came along, which made it easier. Geoff has orange pants to run in, which I eyed enviously, as I have failed to find a good orange outfit for the Bhagwan Rajneesh rogaine this weekend.

commute

Well, I am approaching my first in the series of rogaines, and boy am I looking forward to it.

I still have at least 2 of my 3 partners for the rogaines; Allegany may be up for grabs.

My training goals were not all accomplished, mainly due to illness last week. But I very much enjoyed the blue courses the past couple of weekends. I do seem able to keep moving without much trouble for a few hours at a time. I forgot to toughen up my feet by going barefoot around town. I haven't quite achieved G but G has slipped downward. There is still time.

On a side note, I wonder whether this could be related to the shrinking G. A mysterious repulsive form of energy known as the "cosmological constant" [lambda] ... is several orders of magnitude smaller than predicted by the standard Big Bang model. And shrinking!: The constant was once much larger, but that its value decayed with each incarnation of the universe. I found this intriguing: One idea is that lambda is not really small, but only seems so because it is being cancelled out by another unknown force with near perfect precision. In the case of G, what would this unknown be?

I will head to Portland, Oregon on Friday morning. I'll pick up the rental car and then visit a grocery store. My plan is to get as quickly as possible to Dog Mountain, and go for a hike. Then I'll head to the event site and set up my tent, and probably get to sleep fairly early (time change from Boston - and I'm a morning person). Orlyn said he'd meet me Saturday morning for the 9:00 map handout.

Work, back and forth to bus stop, to Fletcher-Maynard and Sennott Field.

Woke in the Camp Buckner barracks from a dream in which Swampfox was invited to the Boston area to play fox in a game of Fox and Geese. (Everyone stays on trails; there is one fox and everyone else is a goose; when the fox catches a goose, the goose transmogrifies into a fox also, until everyone is a fox.) Instead of in trails made in virgin snow, which is how I've always played it, the dream game was to be played in the woods with O maps. There were also some wild animals, a tiger and some other big cats.

Spent some time while awake today considering how one might really make an orienteering game of fox and geese. Didn't spend much time considering the potentially disturbing question of why I was dreaming about Swampfox, but perhaps it was because I was spending the weekend on his maps.

Blue course.
In contrast to the previous day, I bobbled quite a few of the first few controls. I think I was discombobulated from the ride to the start. Had trouble going to 1, and to 2, and to 8 (sidetracked by an unmapped trail). Then I settled into things. I was surprised that I finished in twice the winner's time (though I didn't stay to see if anyone beat JF), especially given all the problems. It did not feel as though I were going faster than the previous day. The elite runners must have had some problems.

C • I got him by a minute or two i... 1

Event: West Point A meet
 

Blue course 2:32.
Sprint 34.
Still slowed by the night-fever illness.

Shadowed Alex on white.

This went fine; it feels as though I might be recovering from the illness.

This was actually walking in the city. David and I walked to his concert at the high school (he played violin), and I went out walking/jogging a little while waiting for it to start. I felt tired and weak, and my heart was definitely being weird. It's been acting up for a few days, because of the illness. Even though it was only walking, this felt hard!

Later I talked to Isabel about how orienteering is like learning a piece of music. You want to play just slow enough that you don't make mistakes, always knowing where you are and what you're about to do. Then the next time you play you can go a little faster.

4 of us who went to the Albany A meet have the same bug: night fever, some stomach upset, tired.

Fever last night. David also under the weather. We picked up some bug at the A meet. I'm noticing more heart arrhythmias as a result.